As an answer to his rhetorical questions, the Lord proves his sovereign ability to redeem his people again by pointing to his work in nature. The sea cannot withstand a sharp word of command from the Lord: the seas dry up, and their fish die and putrefy.1,2 The Lord is unlimited in power. With equal ease he can control the currents, or tides, of the ocean, reducing the area to the dry land of the desert. Adding a bit of colour, as striking evidence of what his power can do would be the mass of fish, wriggling about, squirming and dying and stinking.
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2 Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.